Various sector workers exempted from curfew

A number of professionals and workers in the essential services, including parliamentarians and healthcare personnel, have been exempted from the nationwide nightly curfew that takes effect later today.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced in Parliament yesterday that permanent secretaries, the security forces, telecommunications workers, and journalists will also be exempted.

Holness made it clear that the exemptions only applied when individuals were on their way to work or travelling back home.

The prime minister had announced on Monday that effective today, a nightly curfew begins at 8 p.m. through to 6 a.m. for the next seven days.

Among the groups not bound by the curfew are parliamentary staff, and workers in the electricity, public works, sanitation, civil aviation, and telecommunications sectors.

Other employees exempt include veterinary surgeons, immigration and customs officers, correctional officers, persons who transport agricultural produce and livestock, and workers in the poultry industry.

Jamaica Urban Transit Company and Montego Bay Metro Limited personnel, workers in the shipping, energy, and business process outsourcing industries, as well as guards and others in the private security sector, are also excluded from the curfew.

Exemptions also apply to workers in the bauxite and alumina sector and the toll authority, workers employed to tourist establishments, the judiciary, court staff, and couriers.